3/11/12 "Kony 2012" & US AFRICOM

NB: Framework for Krony story and all US domestic and foreign news, in the context of US NSS strategy:

Public Diplomacy in Grand Strategy Foreign Policy Analysis (2006) 2, 157–176 (brief excerpt)
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1743-8594.2006.00025.x/abstracthttp://www.burbankdigest.com/node/386
‘‘Public diplomacy’’ and ‘‘propaganda’’ are used interchangeably in this paper...the inﬂuence of the information revolution is not restricted to the developed world,
as evidenced even in the resistance it meets from some non-democratic governments. Furthermore, one should not underestimate the exploitation of new technologies in third-world public diplomacy that is aimed at the developed world, especially at the U.S. All this should not obscure the continuing relevance of force ( hard power) to many interstate relations and increasingly terrorism which presents governments with a grand-strategic challenge: how to combine effectively soft and hard national means to obtain desired political outcomes... especially in the current international system, depends on the government’s ability to manage the complicated balances and tradeoffs that inhere in the relationship between hard force and soft diplomacy... the traditional and time-honored concern of statecraft; however experience can be drawn on with respect to newer forms of force and of communications, such as ﬁghting terrorism in the age of global, real-time television and the Internet...

....

The White House congratulated Invisible Children, makers of the Kony 2012 video.www.thereporteronline.com/ apps/ pbcs.dll/ article?AID=/ 20120308/ NEWS04/ 120309692/ video-white-house-congratulates-kony-video-makers
President Obama talks about Joseph Kony. Jake Tapper of ABC News posted video in which he asks the president about the LRA. The exchange is below.
Tapper: On Friday we learned that you authorized the deployment of 100 Special Forces troops to Central Africa. The Lord's Revolutionary (sic) Army that these troops will be helping to remove their leaders from the battlefield, they are known for using child soldiers, and I'm wondering — the process of agreeing to deploy troops in a situation like this where you know that these special forces might have to return fire and they might be firing upon child soldiers — how difficult is that as a decision to make?

Obama: Well none of these decisions are easy, but those who are familiar with the Lord's Resistance Army and their leader, Mr. Kony, know that these are some of the most vicious killers. They terrorize villages, they take children into custody and turn them into child soldiers, they engage in rape and slaughter in villages they go through. They have been a scourge on the Uganda and that entire region, eastern Africa. So there has been strong bi-partisan support and a coalition, everything from evangelical Christians to folks on the left and human rights organizations who have said it is an international obligation for us to try to take them on and so given that bipartisan support across the board belief that we have to do something about this, what we've done is we've provided these advisors, they are not going to be in a situation where they are called upon to hunt down the Lord's Resistance Army or actively fire on them, but they will be in a position to protect themselves. What they can do is provide the logistical support that is needed, the advice, the training and the logistical support that hopefully will allow this kind of stuff to stop.

US PEACEKEEPERS CAPTURED
Photo of Invisible Children Inc. founders - Bobby Bailey, Laren Poole and Jason Russell posing with guns with members of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) taken at the Sudan-Congo border during the 2008 Juba Peace Talks. Photographer Glenna Gordon was on assignment for the Associated Press:
IC's official explanation by Jason Russell: The photo of Bobby, Laren and I with guns was taken in 2008 in a LRA camp in DRC during the Juba Peace Talks. We were there to see Joseph Kony come to sign the Final Peace Agreement. The SPLA was surrounding our camp for protection since Sudan was mediating the peace talks. We wanted to talk to them and film them and get their perspective. And because Bobby, Laren and I are friends who had been doing this for 5 years, we thought it would be funny to bring back to our friends and family a joke photo...www.washingtonpost.com/ blogs/ blogpost/ post/ invisible-children-founders-posing-with-guns-an-interview-with-the-ph otographer/ 2012/ 03/ 08/

One of the results: USAID /Soros in Sudan: http://www.soros.org/search/results?SearchableText=sudan&go-btn.x=0&go-b...
Barack Obama’s Visit to Africa and the International Criminal Court Prosecution of Omar Al-Bashir of Sudan
*James A. Goldston, Executive Director of the [USAID/Soros NGO] Open Society Justice Initiative, called upon Barack Obama to express US support for Omar Al-Bashir’s trial and prosecution by the ICC.
*Kelly D. Askin, senior legal officer at the Open Society Justice Initiative: it is imperative for western democracies and the AU to intercede to stop the government-abetted genocide in Sudan
*Open Society Fellow Rebecca Hamilton writes that even a small increase in the vigor with which the crimes in Darfur are condemned could lead to behavioral change in Khartoum,.
*The Open Society [aka Soros Foundations] Foundations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch.. call on President Obama to stop military aid to governments that use child soldiers.

Invisible Children's Kony campaign gets support of ICC prosecutor
Louis Moreno Ocampo said the US social media campaign by Invisible Children had "mobilised the world"...“They’re giving a voice to people who before no-one knew about and no-one cared about and I salute them.” Mr Ocampo appears in the Kony 2012 campaign video...http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17303179

* International Criminal Court newly created 2005: ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo 2003-presenthttp://www.icc-cpi.int/NR/rdonlyres/9A924BCD-A9C0-4B59-9F60-7DCB2B78CB13...
1999-present: Transparent Markets Founder and main shareholder of a company which uses market forces to increase transparency and efficiency in public procurement. The company works in Argentina, producing cross border and local information about public purchases by the national government, provinces and cities. Open Society provided a grant to explore the possibilities to develop similar activities in Eastern Europe [US/Soros 'Color Revolutions' or more currently?]

Kony 2012: Wrapping Imperialism in "Activism"http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2012/03/kony-2012-wrapping-imperialiam...
Editor's Note: It is worth mentioning the background of "Invisible Children's" CEO, Ben Keesey, that he was formally pursuing a career at JP Morgan before suddenly becoming an advocate for a US AFRICOM invasion of resource rich Africa. Like other NGOs, including Avaas.org, whose founder is George Soros and Zbignew Brzezinski's International Crisis Group (page 5) ...

KONY 2012, Invisible Children's Pro-AFRICOM and Museveni Propaganda
3/8/12 Black Star News Editorial, "Speaking Truth To Empower"http://blackstarnews.com/news/135/ARTICLE/8007/2012-03-08.html
Dr. Joseph Goebbels' and Leni Riefenstahl would have been proud of this cinematic coup...The U.S. government and Invisible Children are using the brutal Joseph Kony as a bogeyman to justify the U.S. long-term plan, which is to impose AFRICOM on Africa. Since everyone knows about Kony's atrocities, who would object if the U.S. sends 100 U.S. "advisers" to help Uganda, after all? Brilliantly devious. Of course it never stops at 100 "advisers."...the announced deployment; there are probably more U.S. troops in the region. Even before the deployment some had already been training Museveni's soldiers. And more will come, unannounced. General Museveni...told Atlantic Monthly Magazine, September 1994: “I have never blamed the whites for colonizing Africa: I never blamed whites for taking slaves. If you are stupid, you should be taken a slave.” Ironically --or perhaps not-- the general was even more embraced by Washington after those remarks. Museveni deployed Ugandan soldiers to Somalia at the behest of the US...has been a U.S. ally since the days of Ronald Reagan. If the real target was Joseph Kony, the U.S. would use armed predator drones...
AFRICOM, the ultimate objective, would allow the U.S. to counter... China by having boots on the ground near the oil-rich northern part of Uganda, South Sudan, Congo's region bordering Lake Albert, and the Central African Republic. The troops would also be near by in case a decision is made to support regime-change in Khartoum, Sudan. After all, U.S. foreign policy reasoning is that since Sudan's president Omar Hassan al-Bashir and his defense minister have both been indicted by the *International Criminal Court, few would shed tears for them.
African countries oppose AFRICOM. So what does the U.S. do? Go after a "devil", in this case Kony. Tell the world --with the help of Invisible Children--our mission is to help rid Uganda of this "devil"; who by the way is hiding in Central African Republic, while the dictator who stole elections last February, sits in Kampala and meets with U.S. officials and leaders of Invisible Children.

"In Africa...American interests and principles lead in the same direction"
African Oil: A Priority for U. S. National Security and African Development
The African Oil Policy Initiative Group(AOPIG), WA. DC lobby group, established as a result of 1/25/02 DC symposium "African oil, a priority for US national security and African development"
African oil is of national strategic importance to us, and it will increase and become more important as we go forward. ...The United States has an opportunity to break from the politics geostrategic pressure of unstable or unfriendly oil-producing states by actively participating in the creation of a new zone of security and prosperity in a part of the world receptive to American presence - U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Walter Kansteiner III ...The Chad Project is a bold new model for collaboration among private investors, the World Bank and the government of Chad. But success will require keeping the project in the spotlight of public attention as well as under constant scrutiny and monitoring by outside groups: NGOs and the media.
U.S. Officials Cite Importance of African Oil to U.S. Economy
In a press release, the US State Department "stressed the growing importance of African oil to the U.S. economy at a [January 2002] energy seminar,...US sst. Secty. of State Kansteiner, "rushed from meeting with Secretary of State Colin Powell to make that point". Kansteiner, former businessman with the Scowcroft Group international consulting firm -whose members include Kissinger associate Brent Scowcroft, Ambassador Gillespie, formerRAND Director Arnold Kanter ex-Air Force officer Virginia Mulberger - spoke at a January 25 meeting entitled "African Oil: A Priority for U.S. National Security and African Development," sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies (IASPS) based in Washington and Israel

Obama “recognizes that the challenge is a new face, a new sense of direction, a new definition of America’s role in the world.”
Zbigniew Brzezinski

NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL MEMORANDUM-46 MARCH 17, 1978 Presidential Review Memorandum NSCM/46
TO: The Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Director of Central Intelligence

Black Africa and the U.S. Black Movement
Zbigniew Brezinski

U.S. INTERESTS IN BLACK AFRICA
A multiplicity of interests influences the U.S. attitude toward black Africa. The most important of these interests can be summarized as follows:
POLITICAL - ECONOMIC
If black African states assume attitudes hostile to the U.S. national interest, our policy toward the white regimes; which is a key element in our relations with the black states, may be subjected by the latter to great pressure for fundamental change. Thus the West may face a real danger of being deprived of access to the enormous resources of southern Africa which are vital for our defense needs as well as losing control over the Cape sea routes by which approximately 65% of Middle Eastern oil is supplied to Western Europe.
It should also be borne in mind that black Africa is an integral part of a continent where tribal and regional discord, economic backwardness, inadequate infrastructures, drought, and famine, are constant features of the scene. In conjunction with the artificial borders imposed by the former colonial powers, guerilla warfare in Rhodesia and widespread indignation against apartheid in South Africa, the above factors provide the communist states with ample opportunities for furthering their aims. This must necessarily redound to the detriment of U.S. political interests. Moreover, such a development may bring about internal political difficulties by intensifying activity of the Black movement in the US itself...

BLACK AFRICA AND THE U.S. BLACK MOVEMENT
Apart from the above-mentioned factors adverse to U.S. strategic interests, the nationalist liberation movement in black Africa acts as a catalyst with far reaching effects on the American black community stimulating its organizational consolidation and inducing radical actions. Such a result would be likely as Zaire went the way of Angola and Mozambique.
An occurrence of the events of *1967-68 would do grievous harm to U.S. prestige, especially in view of the concern of the present Administration with human rights issues. Moreover, the Administration would have to take specific steps to stabilize the situation. Such steps might be misunderstood both inside and outside the United States.
In order to prevent such a trend and protect U.S. national security interests, it would appear essential to elaborate and carry out effective countermeasures.
1. Possibility of Joint Action By U.S. Black and African Nationalist Movement.
In elaborating U.S. policy toward black Africa, due weight must be given to the fact that there are 25 millions American blacks whose roots are African and who consciously or subconsciously sympathies with African nationalism.
The living conditions of the black population should also be taken into account. Immense advances in the field are accompanied by a long-lasting high rate of unemployment, especially among the youth and by poverty and dissatisfaction with government social welfare standards.
These factors taken together may provide a basis for joint actions of a concrete nature by the African nationalist movement and the U.S. black community... renewal of the extremist national idea of establishing an "African Republic" on American soil. Finally, leftist radical elements of the Black community could resume extremist actions in the style of the defunct Black Panther Party. ...
Basically, actions would take the form of demonstrations and public protests, but the likelihood of violence cannot be excluded. There would also be attempts to coordinate their political activity both locally and in international organizations.
In the context of long-term strategy, the United States can not afford a radical change in the fundamentals of its African policy, which is designed for maximum protection of national security. In the present case, emphasis is laid on the importance of Black Africa for U.S. political, economic and military interests.

RECOMMENDATIONS... arranged without intent to imply priority are:
1. Specific steps should be taken with the help of appropriate government agencies to inhibit coordinated activity of the Black Movement in the United States.
2. Special clandestine operations should be launched by the CIA to generate mistrust and hostility in American and world opinion against joint activity of the two forces, and to cause division among Black African radical national groups and their leaders.
3. U.S. embassies to Black African countries specially interested in southern Africa must be highly circumspect in view of the activity of certain political circles and influential individuals opposing the objectives and methods of U.S. policy toward South Africa. It must be kept in mind that the failure of U.S. strategy in South Africa would adversely affect American standing throughout the world. In addition, this would mean a significant diminution of U.S. influence in Africa and the emergence of new difficulties in our internal situation due to worsening economic prospects.
4. The FBI should mount surveillance operations against Black African representatives and collect sensitive information on those, especially at the UN, who oppose U.S. policy toward South Africa.... include facts on their links with the leaders of the Black movement in the United States, thus making possible at least partial neutralization of the adverse effects of their activity.

B. THE RANGE OF POLICY OPTIONS
The concern for the future security of the United States makes necessary the range of policy options. Arranged without intent imply priority they are:
(a) to enlarge programs... for the improvement of the social and economic welfare of American Blacks in order to ensure continuing development of present trends in the Black movement;
(b) to elaborate and effect a special program designed to perpetuate division in the Black movement and neutralize the most active groups of leftist radical organizations representing different social strata of the Black community: to encourage division in Black circles;
(c) to preserve the present climate which inhibits the emergence from within the Black leadership of a person capable of exerting nationwide appeal;
(d) to work out and realize preventive operations in order to impede durable ties between U.S Black organizations and radical groups in African states;
e) to support actions designed to sharpen social stratification in the Black community leading to widening and perpetuation of the gap between successful educated Blacks and the poor, giving rise to growing antagonism between different Black groups and weakening of the movement as a whole.
(f) to facilitate the greatest possible expansion of Black business by granting government contracts and loans with favorable terms to Black businessmen;
(g) to take every possible means through AFL-CIO leaders to counteract the increasing influence of Black labor organizations which function in all major unions and in particular, the National Coalition of Black Trade Union and its leadership including the creating a real preference for adverse and hostile reaction among White trade unionists to Black demands for improvement of social and economic welfare;
(h) to support the nomination at federal and local levels of loyal Black public figures to elective offices, to government agencies and the Court.

"The Negro youth and moderate[s] must be made to understand that if they succumb to revolutionary teachings, they will be dead revolutionaries."
J. Edgar Hoover,FBI Chief, re:COINTELPRO against the Black Panther Party

Terrorist Use of Internet: Strategic Communications, Public Diplomacy, and Information Operations
3/8/11 http://www.carlisle.army.mil/dime/documents/Terroist%20Use%20of%20Intern...
Congressional Research Service 7-5700 www.crs.gov R41674
There are several methods for countering terrorist and insurgent information operations on the Internet. The federal government has organizations that conduct strategic communications, counterpropaganda, and public diplomacy activities. The National Framework for Strategic Communication guides how interagency components are to integrate their activities. However, these organizations may be stovepiped within agencies, and competing agendas may be at stake. This report does not discuss technical and Internet architecture design solutions....
Cybersecurity proposals from the 111th Congress such as S. 3480, which contained controversial provisions labeled by media the Internet “Kill Switch,” are likely to be reintroduced in some form in the 112th Congress. (See “Congressional Activity.”) With growing interest in strategic communications and public diplomacy, there may also be an effort to revise the Smith- Mundt Act.

Obama: "Contrast Al-Qa’ida’s Intent to Destroy with Our Constructive Vision"
Obama, NSS, http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/national_securi... {excerpt}
The diversity and complexity of the African continent offer the United States opportunities and challenges. As African states grow their economies and strengthen their democratic institutions and governance, America will continue to embrace effective partnerships. Our economic, security, and political cooperation will be consultative and encompass global, regional, and national priorities including access to open markets, conflict prevention, global peacekeeping, counterterrorism, and the protection of vital carbon sinks. The Administration will refocus its priorities on strategic interventions that can promote job creation and economic growth; combat corruption while strengthening good governance and accountability; responsibly improve the capacity of African security and rule of law sectors; and work through diplomatic dialogue to mitigate local and regional tensions before they become crises. We will also reinforce sustainable stability in key states like Nigeria and Kenya that are essential subregional linchpins....
We will continue to build support in other countries to contribute to sustaining global peace and stability operations, through peacekeeping and regional organizations such as NATO and the African Union. We will continue to broaden the pool of troop and police contributors, working to ensure that they are properly trained and equipped, that their mandates are matched to means, and that their missions are backed by the political action necessary to build and sustain peace.
In Sudan, which has been marred by violent conflict for decades, the United States remains committed to working with the international community to support implementation of outstanding elements of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and ensure that the referendum on the future of Southern Sudan in 2011 happens on time and that its results are respected. In addition, we will continue to engage in the efforts necessary to support peace and stability after the referendum, and continue to work to secure peace, dignity, and accountability in Darfur.
• Prevent Genocide and Mass Atrocities: The United States and all U.N. member states have endorsed the concept of the “Responsibility to Protect” [R2P] (ed: first stop, Libya)

US AFRICOM's Libyan Expedition
How War Will Change the Command's Role on the Continent
by Jonathan Stevenson, Professor of Strategic Studies U.S. Naval War College and co-chair of its Africa Regional Studies Group.
5/9/11 Council on Foreign Relations, Inc. http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67844/jonathan-stevenson/africoms...
Until Operation Odyssey Dawn began in Libya on March 19, U.S. Africa Command -- the United States’ newest combatant command, established in October 2008 -- was largely untested. There was reason to worry that AFRICOM, which would lead the operation, was too green, and its mandate too soft, for it to perform up to U.S. standards.
Yet in launching the U.S. intervention in Libya, AFRICOM, led by its commander, General Carter Ham, acquitted itself well. On the first day of the operation, it coordinated the combat operations of 11 American warships and dozens of aircraft, fired 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles, and delivered 45 Joint Direct Attack Munitions to ground targets. By March 23, AFRICOM-led coalition forces had steadily expanded the no-fly zone from northwest Libya and parts of central Libya to the entire coastline. And on March 26, AFRICOM began coordinating operations to destroy armored vehicles, effectively (if not with specific intent) providing close air support to rebel forces. AFRICOM lost only one aircraft -- an F-15 fighter that crashed on March 22 due to a mechanical malfunction -- and suffered no fatalities.
There was, however, political backlash to AFRICOM’s active fighting role in the conflict. Although the three African non-permanent members of the UN Security Council -- Nigeria, South Africa, and Uganda -- had acquiesced to UN Resolution 1973, the bill that green-lighted the intervention, the African Union [AU] unequivocally opposed it. After the campaign began, the AU even tried to arrange a cease-fire, under which Libyan leader Muammar al Qaddafi would have opened channels for humanitarian aid and undertaken negotiations with the rebels but would have been allowed to stay in power....
AFRICOM was created... to bring U.S. military activities in Africa, which had been inefficiently divided among three existing commands (European Command, Central Command, and Pacific Command), under a single one. But an awkward Pentagon rollout seemed to suggest that it would entail increasing the number of U.S. bases in the region and an intensification of military activity there. In particular, in 2007, the principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, Ryan Henry, noted that the Command “would involve one small headquarters plus five 'regional integration teams' scattered around the continent,” and that “AFRICOM would work closely with the European Union and NATO.” These remarks planted suspicions among African officials of the United States’ “militarization” and “recolonization” of the continent. That perception seemed to jibe with the unabashed US interests..
.Although regaining African countries’ trust will be difficult, it is not impossible. In Africa as in Washington, the intervention in Libya is increasingly interpreted as signifying the Obama administration’s shift from a realist foreign policy to a more idealist and interventionist one... The administration should signal through White House and State Department policy statements that future humanitarian intervention is contingent on particular diplomatic, military, and humanitarian circumstances, and that the Libyan intervention constitutes neither the beginning of a trend nor a firm precedent. Secretary Gates struck the right tone during an April 8 visit to Iraq, when he said, referring to the broad political support for the Libya intervention, that “it's hard for me to imagine those kinds of circumstances being replicated anyplace else.”...In word as well as in deed, the idea should be to cast the Libyan operation not as a mistake but as an exception...

USAFRICOM aims to secure Africa:http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20070430-124131-8532r.htm
AfriCom will preside over all countries on the continent except Egypt and is expected to be operational by the fall, according to Pentagon officials. They say it is needed to secure vast, lawless areas where terrorists have sought safe haven to regroup and threaten U.S. interests.

Interacting with USAID
by Admiral James G. Stavridis, Supreme Commander U.S. European Command [USEUCOM and NATO Supreme Allied Commander
11/9/11 http://www.eucom.mil/blog-post/22893/interacting-with-aid
...I talked about the growing and valuable partnership between the Department of Defense and USAID. In three years as Commander of US Southern Command, I learned a great deal about the impact of development on security... with the State Department, this interagency approach is called "the 3Ds - Development, Diplomacy, and Defense."

Political Warfare in Sub-Saharan Africa: U.S. Capabilities and Chinese Operations in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa
The United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), are vying for influence over African governments and people. Not unlike the Cold War, the primary means of exerting influence in Africa is through the use of nonviolent instruments of grand strategy...
3/7/7 http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?PubID=766

Oil-Rich South Sudan... U.S., North Sudan, and Chinawww.businessinsider.com/southern-sudan-independence-2011-7
Since US sanctions were placed on Sudan, most Western energy companies sold their share of the oil fields.. Right now, most of the blocks of oil fields that straddle the border, the lion's share are owned by China National Petroleum Corporation, Petronas, and India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation. China's economic counselor in South Sudan, Zhang Jun, told the Financial Times, that China is willing to send "special teams" to negotiate loans to the South to keep the landlocked country afloat while the Chinese build an pipeline to the Kenya coast. Officials in the South told Reuters that they are willing to use their resources in exchange for credit while a pipeline is built. Building an alternate export pipeline might be a pipe dream, but plenty of offers to build export infrastructure, refineries, and other projects in the new country.South Sudan will no longer be on the America's State Sponsors of Terrorism list and will be technically exempt from the economic sanctions that prohibit Americans from doing any business with the North. However, if the South uses the pipeline through the North and Khartoum gets a cut, then the sanctions still apply...

Sudan President Omar al-Bashir said the southern region had a right to secede and the referendum was helpful because unity "could not be forced by power." He said he would respect the vote outcome and support the south... he also said "The stability of the south is very important to because instability in the south will have an impact on the north. If there is a war in your neighbour's house, you will not be at peace. The south suffers from many problems. It's been at war since 1959. The south does not have the ability to provide for its citizens or create a state or authority."
Sudan President Omar al-Bashirhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Sudanese_independence_referendum,...

US CAPITAL'S DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS & FREEDOM
A referendum took place in Southern Sudan from 9 to 15 January 2011...The predetermined date for the creation of an independent state was 9 July 2011
A coalition of civil society organizations in Southern Sudan carried out an early poll of 1,400 individuals prior to the January referendum, indicating 97% would likely vote for secession...
Former American President Jimmy Carter, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and former Tanzanian Prime Minister Joseph Warioba led the Carter Center international observation delegation. US Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, visited Southern Sudan three times during the referendum period, including during polling. George Clooney, who is supporting the Satellite Sentinel Project (using satellites as a conflict early warning system for Sudan), also made visits to Sudan during the referendum period. Several major regional organisations deployed international observers, including the European Union, the Arab League and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). These organisations issued a joint press statement on the first day of polling....
US President Barack Obama said the vote results were "inspiring" as voters decided "their own future [and marked] another step forward in Africa's long journey toward justice and democracy". He also said Us would recognise South Sudan's independence in July when it is formalisedhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Sudanese_independence_referendum,...

“The U.S. needs its own Special Forces units in place to coordinate its puppet African armies.”
Coming Soon: Obama’s Big Move in Central Africa
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
1/11/12 http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/coming-soon-obama%E2%80%99s-big...
It’s becoming apparent why President Obama sent 100 U.S. Special Forces troops to central Africa in October of last year. The president’s official explanation was that the Green Berets would be helping Uganda, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the new nation of South Sudan to hunt for remnants of the Lord’s Resistance Army. The L.R.A., which has a reputation for killing civilians, was driven from its home in Uganda and now numbers only a few hundred scattered fighters. It poses no threat to any government in the region, is not a plausible cause to dispatch U.S. Special Forces using the L.R.A. to give his military mission a humanitarian cloak – he’s going after rogue bad guys in the bush who threaten African civilians [R2P]...
the real target is South Sudan, where the US is setting the stage for an African proxy oil war with China. Last July, South Sudan won independence from northern Sudan, a country targeted for regime change by Bush and Obama. Sudan’s oil lies at North-South the border and are under production by Chinese companies. The South Sudanese fought a decades long war against the north, during which they were heavily armed and financed by the U.S., Europeans and Israel...South Sudan is already engaged ethnic civil wars that have killed or displaced many tens of thousands...chaos is precisely the environment Washington prefers in Africa so it can establish a new order to U.S. advantage.
“Obama is using the L.R.A. to give his military mission a humanitarian cloak.”
Reporter Thomas C. Mountain, who claims to be the only independent western journalist in the Horn of Africa, points out in a recent article that the US pays the salaries of South Sudan’s army, and pays the costs of thousands of UN so-called “peacekeepers” sent to South Sudan...mostly soldiers from Ethiopia, a U.S. client state that, along with Kenya and Uganda, is waging a US proxy war in Somalia. The Ethiopians worked very closely with U.S. Special Forces, down to the company level, in the 2006 invasion of Somalia. Now in the heart of central Africa, where South Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Congo, and the Central African Republic meet – all U.S. client states – the U.S. needs its Special Forces in place to coordinate its puppet African armies,and keep them focused on the larger mission....to destabilize northern Sudan and China's oil operations. That makes perfect imperial sense. The US can no longer compete financially in Africa with China and must resort to raw force, through African puppet armies. The U.S. mobilized all its East and Central Africa proxies for a big push that needs close coordination on the ground. Obama's Green Beret aren't hunting for the Kony and his rag-tag Lord’s Resistance Army...
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com

South Sudan - The World's Newest, Fragile, Oil-Rich Petrostate
Al-Bashir has the dolorous distinction of being the first serving head of state charged by the International Criminal Court on ten counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide he allegedly oversaw in Sudan's western Darfur region since civil war broke out there in 2003.www.oilprice.com/ Energy/ Crude-Oil/ South-Sudan-The-World-s-Newest-Fragile-Oil-Rich-Petrostate.html

South Sudan expels head of Chinese-Malaysian oil firm
PALOUGE OIL FIELD South Sudan has expelled the head of Chinese-Malaysian oil consortium Petrodar, the main oil firm operating in ...
2/22/12 .reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE81L00E20120222

Depopulation and Perception Management: Central Africa
Keith Harmon Snow, 2001
Hidden History of U.S. Role in Rwanda Genocide and Subsequent U.S. Invasion of Zaire

U.S. GLOBAL MILITARY COMMAND STRUCTURE
The United States is the only state which divides the entire globe into military commands with a general or admiral in command of each region and designated forces.

AFRICA AT THE BOILING POINT
ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/AFRICOM/AFRICOM.pptSimilar
Microsoft Powerpoint -[MAP +]
Staff will be drawn from all branches of the military, as well as USAID and ... Annenberg School of Communication, Center for Public Diplomacy ...

Edward Bernays believed society could not be trusted to make rational and informed decisions on their own, and that guiding public opinion was essential in a democratic society. Bernays founded the Council on Public Relations and his 1928 book, Propaganda cites the methodology used in the application of effective emotional communication. He discovered that such communication is capable of manipulating the unconscious in an effort to produce a desired effect – namely, a capacity to manufacture mass social adherence in support of products, political candidates and social movements.
Nearly a century after his heyday, Bernays’ methodology is apparent in almost every form of civic and consumer persuasion. The platform of social media is being used in unprecedented new ways, one such example is a new online video documentary about the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), an extremist rebel group operating in Central Africa.
The documentary is unprecedented, not for its educational attributes but for its capacity to use visual branding, merchandising and highly potent emotional communication to influence the viewer to support US military operations in resource rich Central Africa under the pretext of capturing the LRA’s commander, Joseph Kony. The Lord’s Resistance Army was originally formed in 1987 in northwestern Uganda by members of the Acholi ethnic group, who were historically exploited as forced laborers by the British colonialists and later relegated by the nation’s dominant ethic groups following independence. Together with the Holy Spirit Movement, the LRA represented the armed wing of a resistance faction aiming to overthrow the government of current Ugandan President and staunch US military ally, Yoweri Museveni.
The LRA, originally formed to combat ethic marginalization,soon became dominated by Joseph Kony, a self-proclaimed spiritual messenger of the (Christian) Holy Spirit. Kony utilized his messianic persona to lead a syncretic spiritual movement based on Acholi tribal beliefs’ and extremist Christian dogma... It is claimed that the LRA seeks to establish a theocratic state based on the Ten Commandments. In an effort to mobilize a large scale armed resistance, the LRA routinely recruited child soldiers and forced them to commit heinous acts such as cannibalism and mutilation on others who resisted to join the rebel group during their extensive twenty-five year campaign...The LRA has contributed to less than one hundred unverified deaths in the past year.

KONY 2012 is directed by Jason Russell and runs just thirty minutes; the video has received over twenty million views on YouTube and Vimeo and it’s national support group on Facebook is said to gain 4,000 members each hour . The highly produced feature is narrated from the perspective of Russell and his attempt to explain the Lord’s Resistance Army to his infant son, Gavin. The video features footage from Russell’s trip to Uganda (prior to 2006, when the LRA was still operating in the region) and introduces the viewer to Jacob, a Ugandan boy who was formally recruited by the LRA as a child soldier. Russell presents various montages of ethically diverse groups of students raising their fists in the air, sporting KONY t-shirts, and scenes of mass celebration in response to President Obama signing the S. 1067: Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009 .
The bill was passed without congressional approval, and allows the US to deploy military forces in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan (at the consent of those nations) in pursuit of LRA rebels. The film further advocates the requirement of public support for US military operations in the region through forms of street activism, encouraging viewers to purchase Action Kits ($30.00) and posters ($10.00) featuring images of Joseph Kony. Russell then targets specific celebrities and US policy makers and pressures them to endorse the campaign against Kony. Perhaps most absurdly, Russell suggests that without mass public support from the American public, the US would withdraw its military presence from the region.
This is a large-scale campaign to mobilize social medialites to aggregate public support for what would otherwise be, controversial pro-intervention US foreign policy. The production relies on highly charged, often unrelated emotional triggers, which ultimately rely on the viewers sense of compassion in tandem with a lack of prior information on the subject to produce a desired result – explicitly, the villainous mythification of Kony and the mainstream acceptance of US presence in Africa through a proposed archipelago of AFRICOM military bases in the region.
The production targets an age group between thirteen and twenty-one, and uses a level of academic vocabulary appropriate for a young adult audience with a limited attention span; the narrator at one point even insists the viewer pay attention. The viewer is encouraged to form an emotional connection to Russell, as we witness unrelated footage of his child’s birth. The viewer is then subsequently associated with Russell’s role as a nurturer to his young son, before shifting to scenes of Russell nurturing the Ugandan child soldier, Jacob. Russell is shown prophetically pledging to stop the LRA to the traumatized and crying young boy. The intimate portrayal of emotion in these scenes work to further incite an reactionary response from the viewer, towards the preordained conclusion suggested in the narrative - a mass mobilization of support for the US military in their efforts to stop Jacob’s source of trauma. Bernays’ would be beside himself.
KONY 2012 is produced like any other sleek marketing campaign – instead of stimulating self-satisfaction like advertisers to promote products, US military intervention is justified to end an atrocious humanitarian catastrophe. The film also plays on an underlying theme of the White Man’s Burden, a notion that persons of European descent inherit a quality of guilt for their ancestors’ inclination for slavery and colonialism, requiring an activist response to finally correct the situation by “saving Africa.” During the Nigerian civil war in 1967, western media successfully used images of starving children for the first time to strengthen public support for military aid to the secessionist Republic of Biafra before rebel forces were defeated. This film attempts to purportedly “change the conversation of our culture,” however it remains a highly sophisticated refurbishment of pro-military interventionist foreign policy propaganda, dependent on dangerous subliminal messaging.

Furthermore, the film was produced by an organization called Invisible Children, Inc....The group’s Co-Founder and President, Laren Poole addressed the International Criminal Court in 2009 alongside Aryeh Neier, President of George Soros’ Open Society Institute.
Invisible Children partnered with two other organizations, Resolve and Digitaria, to create the LRA Crisis Tracker, a digital crisis-mapping platform that broadcasts attacks allegedly committed by the LRA.Its list of corporate sponsors includes Resolve [NB: USAID/Soros NGOs] * Human Rights Watch and the International Rescue Committee . Digitaria’s website boasts commercial clients such as CBS, FOX, MTV, ESPN, Adidas, NFL, Qualcomm, NBC, National Geographic, Hasbro and Warner Brothers. While KONY 2012 attempts to portray itself as an indigenous activist movement bent on bringing justice to African children, its parent organization is affiliated with the upper echelon of the US corporate media and a network of foundation-funded civil society groups with a long history of fomenting pro-US regime change under the banner of democratic institution building...
Joseph Kony...was last seen in crossing between Sudan and CAR in 2010, according to unverified reports. The US military currently [ed: claims it] has 100 military officers training and overseeing Ugandan military in anti-LRA operations. Due to the complete absence of LRA activity in Uganda, it is feasible the US may be planning further operations in the resource rich DRC. Over six million Congolese have been killed in war since 1996 , largely with US complicity. The regimes of Paul Kagame in Rwanda and Yoweri Museveni in Uganda have both received millions in military aid from the US. Since the abhorrent 1993 US intervention in Somalia, the US has relied on the militaries of Rwanda, Uganda and Ethiopia to carry out US interests in proxy.

Paul Kagame of Rwanda has been given free reign by the US to conduct military operations inside DRC in the on-going ethnic conflict in that region following the 1994 Rwandan genocide. For Ugandan participation in the fight against Somalia’s al Shabaab, Museveni receives $45 million dollars in military aid. The US has contributed enormous sums to these nations and is beginning to consolidate its presence in the region under Barack Obama and AFRICOM...

Through AFRICOM, the United States is seeking a foothold in central Africa in a further maneuver to aggregate regional hegemony over China. DRC is one of the world’s largest regions without an effectively functioning government. It contains vast deposits of diamonds, cobalt, copper, uranium, magnesium, and tin, producing over $1 billion in gold a year ...the US could considerably increase its presence in DRC under the pretext of capturing Joseph Kony. The US may further mobilize forces, in addition to the use of predator drones and targeted missile strikes, inevitably killing civilians. In a press conference at the House Armed Services Committee March 13, 2008, AFRICOM Commander, General William Ward stated that AFRICOM will further its regional presence by "operating under the principle theatre-goal of combating terrorism”. During an AFRICOM Conference held at Fort McNair on February 18, 2008, Vice Admiral Robert T. Moeller declared AFRICOM’s guiding principle as protecting “the free flow of natural resources from Africa to the global market”, before citing China’s increasing presence in the region as challenging to American interests. The crimes of the Lord’s Resistance Army have been documented in the past and they are truly despicable actions. Presently, the LRA operations have nearly dissolved and their presence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is difficult to verify. While the pro-war filmmakers behind KONY 2012 naively [SIC] call for the US military to assert its place in the conflict...
Editor's Note: Please see BlackStarNews.com about Kony 2012 and about verified Western atrocities in Uganda http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/shrd/2006/80584.htm

Guiding Principles on Non-Governmental Organizations
12/14/06 http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/77771.htm
Recognizing that non-governmental organizations (NGOs)* are essential to the development and success of free societies and that they play a vital role in ensuring accountable, democratic government,And recalling the right to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association enshrined in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders,We hereby pledge our commitment to the following principles and our determination to work for their full implementation throughout the world:
1. Individuals should be permitted to form, join and participate in NGOs of their choosing in the exercise of the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association.
2. Any restrictions which may be placed on the exercise by members of NGOs of the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association must be consistent with international legal obligations.
3. NGOs should be permitted to carry out their peaceful work in a hospitable environment free from fear of harassment, reprisal, intimidation and discrimination.
4. Acknowledging governments’ authority to regulate entities within their territory to promote the public welfare, such laws and administrative measures should protect--not impede--the peaceful operation of NGOs and be enforced in an apolitical, fair, transparent and consistent manner.
5. Criminal and civil legal actions brought by governments against NGOs, like those brought against all individuals and organizations, should be based on tenets of due process and equality before the law.
6. NGOs should be permitted to seek, receive, manage and administer for their peaceful activities financial support from domestic, foreign and international entities.
7. NGOs should be free to seek, receive and impart information and ideas, including advocating their opinions to governments and the public within and outside the countries in which they are based.
8. Governments should not interfere with NGOs’ access to domestic- and foreign-based media.
9. NGOs should be free to maintain contact and cooperate with their own members and other elements of civil society within and outside the countries in which they are based, as well as with governments and international bodies.
10. Whenever the aforementioned NGO principles are violated, it is imperative that democratic nations act in their defense.

Strategic Leadership: Framework for a 21st Century National Security Strategy
A Bipartisan Discussion with Five Former Secretaries of State
Center for a New American Security http://www.cnas.org 07/24/2008 URL: http://www.cnas.org/phoenixinitiative
SlaughterDaalderJentleson_StrategicLeadership_July08.pdf
The Center for a New American Security and its consortium partners hosted a bipartisan roundtable discussion to assess the U.S. foreign policy challenges confronting the next American president with five former Secretaries of State -- Madeleine K. Albright, James A. Baker, III, Warren Christopher, Henry Kissinger, and Colin L. Powell. This important discussion entitled “The Next President: A World of Challenges” occurred as the general election campaign swung into high gear, the presidential candidates and the world focus on complex global issues... Secretaries Albright, Baker, Christopher, Kissinger and Powell’s unique discussion offered valuable insight to the national debate that was underway over the future direction of American global leadership and the role of diplomacy.
Media partners CNN and America Abroad broadcasted the event as a special report. The event was moderated by Frank Sesno, director of our host George Washington University's Public Affairs Project, CNN special correspondent and Christiane Amanpour CNN chief international correspondent.